On September 9, the rest of the UVA football team will be kicking off their first home game of the season against Wyoming. Former wide receiver Theirrien “Bud” Davis, however, will be sitting in jail, at the beginning of a three-month sentence earned for stealing from the UVA bookstore.
Well, make that sort of stealing. According to Albemarle Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Jon Zug, who prosecuted the case, Davis was shopping in the upstairs textbook department, looking over his shoulder suspiciously and picking up books. Store employees followed him to the lower retail level, where Davis, seemingly aware that he was being watched, bought a coffee and one book and left, leaving some textbooks downstairs. UVA police were called to the scene, and Davis admitted that he’d intended to steal the $500 pile of books. He said he wanted to resell them.
This illegal moving of textbooks got him slapped with a felony grand larceny charge—his first ever offense. A plea agreement between his lawyer, Fran Lawrence, and the Commonwealth reduced the charge to larceny under $200, a Class 1 misdemeanor, to which Davis pleaded guilty.
He was sentenced to 12 months in jail, with nine of them suspended. He will also endure three years of post-release supervision, and was ordered to pay $1,322.35 to the UVA bookstore.
“Theirrien thanks Coach Groh and his staff and his teachers and advisers here at UVA, both in sports and out, for their love and support. He apologizes for letting them down,” Lawrence said in a statement.
As part of his punishment, Davis has withdrawn from the University, and is barred from UVA football, sparing us all the trouble of having to say his name (which is pronounced THAIR-en) this season. The 5’11", 180-pound wide receiver played 16 games for UVA, and had three career catches for a total of 54 yards. He returned two kickoffs for 44 yards for the Cavaliers.
One name we’d like to have back on the receiving lineup begins with a D and ends with an “eyon Williams,” but losing Davis to jail sure doesn’t help matters. We bet he wishes he had just bought the coffee.
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